


Citadel Shadows

by Tyellas



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dark, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blood Drinking, Body Horror (verbal discussion), Breeding, Citadel medical worldbuilding, Close to Canon, Dreams and Nightmares, Dubious Consent, F/M, Forced Pregnancy, Friendship, Furiosa and War Boys are vampires, Magic, Medical Trauma, Milking Mothers - Freeform, Organic trying to work around the Immortan, Rape, Vaginal Sex, each chapter has warnings in notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 13:34:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 8,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10900401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tyellas/pseuds/Tyellas
Summary: After the Fury Road, the changed Citadel still has its shadows. Capable, the Dag, and Toast get a taste of them as they shed their last risk from the Immortan.Capable dreams of a black and chrome Wasteland of magic and vampires…the Dag finds herself channelling a Milking Mother’s fear and violation…and Toast relives a hard introduction to the Citadel at the hands of the Organic Mechanic and the body of a slit-faced War Boy.





	1. Kill or Cure

**Author's Note:**

  * For [redcandle17](https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/gifts).



> For redcandle17 in the Mad Max Fury Road Exchange 2017!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The four Sisters settle into the Citadel's quarantine area for the night, prepared to do well by doing good. But a louche visitor reminds them of all the Citadel's compromises and shadows.

“When this is done…it will really be over,” Capable mused. She looked around the space where they waited: one of the old Infirmary areas. They’d returned to take over the Citadel, and they’d changed a lot already. A thousand pairs of hands were eager to put their work at their new rulers’ disposal. But they hadn’t gotten the whitewash and air holes into this quarantine room yet. It was out of the way – which was what they needed, tonight.

“Provided that it works,” said the Dag. “Do they really have that much science left here?”

Capable said, “There was clean air for the Immortan and his sons to breathe. They were keeping blood bags alive and giving their blood to War Boys and others. They were making drugs, like chrome. You saw the shots the Organic Mechanic used to give the Immortan.” The Dag stuck her tongue out. Capable smiled. “So it makes sense that they have a…a place where they make some medicines, like in the Before-Time.”

Toast added, “Furiosa took me down there. It’s buried in the Immortan’s favourite tower, near the water. You’d hate it, Dag. It’s like Gastown in one room, distilling chem and plants into drugs. A lab, they call it. The people who run it -- they are _weird_. They wouldn’t leave, even when we told them they could. As long as they can get chromed up or fumed down, they’ll do anything we ask. So we asked them for medicine that can help some of the people-from-outside who are sick.” Capable nodded with approval at Toast not saying _Wretched_.

“Us, too!” the Dag spat. “If anything can make us well after filthy old Joe.” They all made faces, recalling the Immortan’s unwell, decaying body, forced on them. The Vuvalini healer, Melita, had told them what they needed to watch for with themselves. Then, Furiosa and Toast had emerged from the strange, dark lab, with news that felt like hope for putting it right. “What was the wordburger for the medicine they’ll give us?”

“ _Antibiotics._ High-octane ones. Here they come,” said Toast.

Capable smiled as Cheedo came in, side by side with Melita, the old red-headed Vuvalini. The Vuvalini had been a healer before the Fall, and kind, soft-handed Cheedo was her apprentice, now. The figure who followed was Cheedo’s opposite: the most presentable of the hidden lab’s denizens, one who had worked with Organic sometimes. She was skin and bones, pallid and red-eyed, with pinpoint pupils and silver-chapped lips. Capable had seen her before. When there was a medical task at hand, she stopped reeling to take on demented focus.

She was relishing her role today. The medic held up a tiny white jar. “It’s heee-eere! Fresh out the lab. The nastiest bug-killer we’ve cooked yet. Wanted to give it to you face to pretty face, all personal!”

Capable kept her smile on, carefully. “All of us appreciate your hard work. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

The medic tossed the jar up a little and caught it. “You lovely ladies sure you want to try this all together? Not get some Wretches in? Expendables. You’re keeping our chrome chem coming, be a shame to lose you all at once. When we had a new brew for the Immortan --”

“NO!” they shouted, together.

“If we’re benefiting from this first, as Citadel leaders, it’s right that we take the risk first,” said Capable.

The Dag went further. “We’re going to be better than the Immortan. Or there’s no use being anything.”

The medic cackled. “Even if it kills you? This dose just might. Kill or cure!”

Cheedo’s face collapsed into pained worry. Melita said, grimly, “We’ll be holding you for observation overnight for a reason. Tell them what can go wrong.”

“Could be nothin’. Could be, mmm, depends how you like having all the good bugs in your guts knocked out for a while. Could have your _nausea_ , your _cramps_ , your _dizziness_. _Emetic_ effects! I bet shine breeders like you don’t have tailpipes but if I’m _wrong_ you’ll want to stay near a privy bucket. Gets bad enough, it’s an ugly way to die for such pretties. But! If this new blend works,” the medic leered, “you’ll be screwing your favourite War Boys stupid in no time.”

Capable hoped her scarlet face wasn’t visible in the dimness.  To her surprise, Cheedo snapped before Toast did. She put herself between the awful medic and her three Sisters. “I”LL stay all night and watch them. Give me that!” She snatched the antibiotic jar from the medic’s loose, bony fingers.

She and Melita doled out the medicine as shots. It was a long process that took two people, sterilizing what Melita called an _intramuscular needle_ each time.

Capable didn’t enjoy her shot. She winced as the Dag, pregnant and careful, arranged herself for hers. Afterwards, Capable asked, “You OK?”

The Dag’s mouth twisted between a grin and a grimace. “It’s a bigger prick than the Immortan’s.”

The lab medic shrieked in appreciation. “You’ll be all right. Save a V-8, ride a War Boy!” Melita grabbed the medic’s arm and dragged her out, Cheedo watching to make sure they were gone.

The Dag folded her arms. “I don’t like having chrome-crazy blood-suckers around.”

“Nobody else does what they do,” Capable said, “It’s a compromise.”

“Not our first, either.” Toast’s expression was stormy. “I’m sick of this. We’re like this with Gastown, the Bullet Farm, the Wretched gangs. Always compromising!”

Capable turned to her. “It’s how things get done. You just got back from working out compromises with Gastown! Besides, the Dag is right. If we don’t listen to others, we are the Immortan again.”

“I’m from the Wasteland. I know how to deal. I know what we have to do to survive! I hate that it’s here where we live. There’s no escape from it.” Toast inhaled, black eyes wide. “And what I hate the most is that we aren’t strong enough to do better.” Capable had no reply to this. When the silence stretched thin, Toast stormed off to the furthest cot in the room and flung herself on it, facing the wall.

Cheedo had retreated from the conflict to flutter around the Dag. Capable heard her asking, “Are you OK? Does the baby feel all right?”

“If it doesn’t I’m fine with that.”

“Dag!”

“I want my body back. This is part of that. However it turns out.” At these words, Cheedo retreated and turned to Toast. Toast was, somehow, managing to be the most aggressive blanket roll possible, still radiating anger.

Cheedo twisted her hands together, looking at Capable. “Are you OK alone too?”

“I think…I’m going to try and get some sleep soon. But I’m cold. Could you sit with me for a bit?” Capable said, choosing a cot herself. There were four of them there: an echo of the Vault.

Cheedo perched on the edge of Capable’s cot, gingerly. There was another long silence. Finally, Cheedo whispered to her. “Do you feel bad yet? From the shot.”

“No. Just tired.” Weary of fighting: anguished at having all the compromises she wove each day inside the Citadel thrown back at her. She had fallen into being the Sisters’ face in the lower Citadel, as the Dag represented them to the Citadel’s farmers. This left Toast as the Sister standing between the Citadel and its dubious external allies. Capable had known it was weak of her to never want to go back to Gastown. She was from there. She still remembered its ruthless, relentless barrage of sounds, stinks, and smarts. The Citadel could use all the help it could get, there. Now she was counting the cost of what her taking refuge from that had done to Toast.

Cheedo’s next words were a distracting relief. “You liked Nux. Do you like any other War Boys?”

Capable thought of the War Boys they had now. There were young, fervid men who reminded her of Nux, subtle older ones like the Ace, and fresh recruits eager to act the way the new Citadel said War Boys should. They surrounded Capable every day, helpful, adoring. She admitted, fondly, “Maybe one or two.”

“Toast and I were just in Gastown. There were lots of different men there. Even full-lives, our age. I thought about them and…” Cheedo glanced over at the Dag, clearly smitten. “You can have them.”

Capable chuckled. “Thanks. I’m from Gastown. I’d rather have a Citadel one. They’re easier to please. And a lot less grimy.”

Cheedo giggled in shock. Then, still looking at the Dag, she asked, “Do you still miss Angharad?”

Capable found her voice had turned into a raw whisper. “More than anyone.”

Cheedo was helping the healers for a reason. She was wise and kind enough to not make Capable talk anymore. She stayed on the edge of Capable’s cot, simply being. Capable curled up around Cheedo’s hips for warmth. She closed her eyes. It had been a long day, full of hard work. At times like this it felt like this Citadel was doing its best to drain her dry. Sleep wasn’t far away.

Yet sleep was not rest. Not when she slid into such a disturbing dream.


	2. Black and Chrome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Capable has a vision of a Wasteland where the Immortan, Furiosa, and the War Boys are vampires - and, with his Wives, the Immortan both breeds and feeds. The black-and-chrome Fury Road brings risk, freedom, and the company of a blood bag. Warnings for vampires, magic, blood drinking, and overall dark tone.

Capable dreamed of the journey again, the Fury Road: the same, but different.

The Wasteland they drove through was the wrong colour. Its sands were silvery-chrome, striped with darkest grey cloud shadows. The cloud-barred sky was pale as crystal. The toxic storm that had rolled over them had been stripped of its red hue, black as night instead. Lightning crackled blue, here and there: part of the magic that still simmered in their world after technology’s apocalypse.

Capable climbed out of the cab and clambered down the back of the Rig to take the lookout. When she did, she slid out carefully, past doors with smoked-glass windows. The perpetual dusk inside the Rig cab protected its driver, Imperator Furiosa. Everyone knew vampires couldn’t be exposed to the sun. In the black-and-chrome dream Wasteland, this was normal.

In fact, it had taken Furiosa’s strange energies to break the Immortan’s wards. Miss Giddy’s magics, which nurtured life, couldn’t do that. But they had made the old crone compelling enough to talk Furiosa around, even when Furiosa trembled with suppressed hunger amongst the Immortan’s Wives. They had been trapped there to sate his every lust, for blood and sex. For the Immortan, too, was a vampire. The caverns of the Citadel sheltered him and his cult of pale, blood-sucking War Boys, until he sent them out to battle and the slow, incendiary death of the sun.

In the wild chaos of their escape, one of the War Boys’ blood bags had been strong enough to fight his way free and join them. He and Furiosa, after a first terrible fight, now eyed each other like prey and predator. Neither had stopped Capable when she slipped back, aching for some time to be with the awful loss of Angharad. She was just lowering the binoculars, dull with sadness, when she heard a banging under a tarp right beside her.

Capable moved it back and saw, to her shock, one of the vampire War Boys. The one who had stolen her neck-scarf in the earlier scuffle – the scarf that had hidden her feeding bites and scars.

He was so pale, clearly on the edge of death. From his babbling, it seemed he had failed at something and, trapped on the Rig, been whisked far from the Immortan and his potent sorcery. It took a while to get him to make sense.  “I was awaited in Valhalla. They were calling my name. I should be walking with the Immorta. McFeasting on the heroes of all time.”

Capable swallowed. She could take the tarp away and watch him burn in the sunlight. But the War Boys, though vampires, were drones, as enslaved as his Wives have been. She found herself saying, “I’d say it was your manifest destiny not to. Do you – need to feed? Will that make you stronger?”

“Valhalla, yes!”

She slid under the tarp. He curled his long, cold limbs around her, hungrily. She stiffened her spine, arced her neck back, and crimped her eyes shut. Bracing herself for the awful, tearing bite. Feeding a vampire wasn’t supposed to hurt. In most of the Wasteland, it was thought good fortune to be paired up with one. But the Immortan was greedy. He fed on them all, and used up most of his soothing venom on Angharad, his first and favourite. Yet here and now, the touch on her neck was light. She opened her eyes slightly. The vampire War Boy was caressing her before he fed. His blue eyes were soft with adoration. “You’re so chrome. Such glory.” Then he closed his eyes to part his lips. She glimpsed his fangs and –

He fed.

What began with raw, animal pressure on her neck soon felt like worship. Deep and consuming, drawing her mind into blackness while her veins filled with silver light. It was terrible and exquisite and endless, like the silver sands…

When sight and awareness returned to Capable, she sat up. The War Boy did, too, looking almost alive.

Dusk was falling. “I think you can make it down to the cab now.” His eyes widened. She half-stood, holding out her hand. “Come on. With me? Maybe you can help us.” He rose. And when they’d escaped yet again, it was against him in the cab that she slept for the first time since Angharad’s fall, while he watched the black and chrome sands roll by.

* * *

Time blurred. After a dark dawn passing through the Crow Eaters’ swamp, the day’s brightness, even through the smoked glass, made Nux uncomfortable. He huddled on the floor to hide from the sun. Furiosa, up front, gritted her teeth and drove on – until she stopped.

A shimmering skeleton of a tower waited in the desert before them, and from its height, a sorceress wailed. Her compelling voice seemed to net Furiosa. “I remember…something like this,” she said, dreamily, more gentle than they’d ever heard her.

The blood bag man, for all that Furiosa called him Fool, was wise. “Unh-unh. That’s bait.”

Furiosa was hardly listening as she tumbled out into a dune shadow that led towards the sorceress’ alluring song. She stilled the magic calling with her own cry, stating her full name and clan. As if all spells were broken, the sorceress clambered down. In a spin of sand, six more sorceresses appeared, dark and leather-draped.

Capable and the other Wives stared at each other in amazement and then, one by one, dashed towards the women. They arrived just in time to hear the sorceresses explaining. Their tale was soured with fouled earth, black magic bringing crows, the death of the Green Place. Furiosa’s eyes went hollow. She stripped off her metal arm and, bereft with grief, staggered into the sun.

Capable grabbed Toast’s arm. “We’ve got to get to her. Cover her.”

“What?” said the first, dark-haired sorceress.

“She’s a vampire, the sun will kill –“ Capable said no more. The dark-haired sorceress dashed after Furiosa. She caught up to her just as Furiosa, screaming out her soul, collapsed to her knees, smouldering. The sorceress stripped off her burlap poncho and flung it over Furiosa, shielding her from the sun. And she clung tight, tight, tight.

A noise drew her. Capable turned back to the Rig. Nux was still protecting himself in the cab. But the wise fool was looking out, and his face had enough grief for a hundred men.

It was enough to drive Capable back to Nux’s arms later that night. He fed on her once more and, after that, waited on her like an enraptured slave. Capable heard one of the old sorceresses explaining to the Dag. “That’s how it’s supposed to be, with vampire and blood. As for me…killed everyone I ever met, out here…silver bullet headshots, all of them…”

* * *

They had turned around, half in hope, half in despair. The wise fool had urged them to claim the Citadel, with its wellspring of power, the only true Green Place and vampire refuge in the ruined world. So, they had turned. There had been a terrible twilight battle. Nux – her vampire boy’s name was Nux –had fallen on the road of fury behind them. Now they were rolling through the dusk before the dawn, crowding the dead Immortan’s vehicle. Furiosa might not help them bring a new order to the Citadel, either. She was struggling for her life after a stab from a silver blade.

The surviving old sorceresses had thrown Furiosa up against the wise fool – he was warm, at least. He looked down at her helplessly. In these last moments, Furiosa looked like the delicate prey she had once been, pale, drained helplessly, a strange beauty about her. Capable looked up from her and found the blood bag staring at herself, at the scarf she had reclaimed for her neck. He touched his own neck, pocked with scars from being fed to ravening War Boys. Then, he muttered. “Come on,” and lifted Furiosa.

Furiosa's mouth brushed his neck. She made an inquiring sound.

He swallowed. Against Furiosa’s pallor, his skin was ruddy, throbbing with life. He pressed his neck down. “There you go. Okay? There you go…”

And her lips peeled back over her fangs.

Capable saw him slump into Furiosa’s feeding. A sorceress and the Dag held him up. Before dark, somnolent ecstasy claimed him completely, he murmured, “Max. My name is Max. That’s my name…”

A tense silence held in the vehicle throughout the long feeding. It was longer, Capable would swear, than any other she had known.

Time blurred again. She and Toast and Cheedo were on the outside of the vehicle, holding up a tarp over Furiosa and the wise fool. Toast was the one who screamed, “The Immortan is dead!” and kicked the corpse off the hood of the vehicle. There was chaos, and chanting. The Wretched mob decreed to Let Them Up. Furiosa was strong enough to stand alone, draped in the Immortan’s old sun-warding shroud, as they began to ascend on the Treadmill.

There was a magnificent roar. The Milking Mothers, freed at last to use their nurturing magics as they willed, not just at the Immortan’s command, were sending a sweet, clean rain sweeping over the crowd. People were dancing with joy. Capable smiled and turned to see if the wise fool truly understood what he had given them –

But he was gone.

Capable followed Furiosa’s line of sight. The wise fool had leapt off the Treadmill. He was retreating into the crowd. Capable understood. It was so much, giving yourself through feeding. It laid your soul bare: it created a bond, of love or of hate. He was fleeing it while he could. An awful thought came to her. With the wise fool gone, who would slake Furiosa's blood-need?

Slowly, Capable turned. And met the blaze of hunger in their saviour’s face.

* * *

Capable awoke with a shudder.

She sat up. She was alone on her cot, in a dim room, with just one night lantern. Their four drowsy bodies had warmed the space. The world was full of deep colour again. There was no magic. There were no vampires. No worshipful, helpful Nux.

She felt her eyes brim, strangely bereft.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> redcandle17 had several prompts and this framing device let me fill several of them.
> 
> Prompt for this chapter: "I really want a Vampire AU where Immortan Joe and his warriors are all vampires. The Wives can either be his vampires brides or his personal food supply, and Max is still a blood bag. The escape still happens like in canon. A scene of Max allowing Furiosa to feed on him or Capable allowing Nux to feed on her would be especially appreciated."


	3. Mute and Dim

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Dag has a vision of a Milking Mother's dubious consent to the Citadel's cruelty. Warnings for explicit body imagery, forced breeding, and a cold, impersonal dubcon sexual encounter.

The Dag saw Capable sit up, eyes black hollows in the night room. After staring blankly into space, she padded away. Either to the privy area, or to somewhere she could breathe.

If it was the latter, the Dag wanted to follow. She hated these dark interior spaces of the Citadel. Others said these spaces were haunted by souls dragged deep to die in secret. The Dag believed that. _Roundabout and reversed_ , she told herself: she’d walk out from these shadows with her life renewed, her self fully hers again.

Cheedo had snuck over beside her, then fallen asleep. Tonight, Cheedo’s closed eyes looked tight, with a double crease of worry. The Dag stayed still to not wake her.

She was in her seventh month of pregnancy, and the child she carried rode heavy. The Dag had chosen to keep it in her womb, more than half relying on the natural solution of a miscarriage. Now that it was beyond that point, she found it easier to think of the new life as an _it_ , a _them_ , a _pup_. Something innocent and neutral. It drained her, whether she liked it or not. She felt distorted. She knew she was moody, found herself always hungry, always napping, more sensitive to touch than she liked to be. Especially in here.

The Dag breathed gently, as Miss Giddy had taught them, to ride out the tense waiting. She turned, closed her eyes. It was so quiet inside, without the creaks and wind-sounds of the Citadel’s green heights. She found herself hearing noise that wasn’t really there. Perhaps a ghost was oozing from the stones to whisper in her ear….

After that last waking thought, the Dag’s dreaming spun her into a space far more confining, a body even less her own.

* * *

 

The light in the Milking Mothers’ stable was minimal. It was shady to keep the milk and equipment cool against the eternal heat outside. It made the world look wrong: subdued, colours damped down into dun and dimness.

Sheila fidgeted against the clamp and suck of the milking pumps. She eyed the glass bottle with her production. Despite the full swell of her breasts, it wasn’t a lot, today. When they brought the trays of food around, she crammed herself. She remembered being hungry. Thirsty, too. She gestured to one of the pregnant breeders who served them, took and drank water that she did not want. Neither of these made much difference to the level in the glass bottle.

There was some commotion at the door. She couldn’t help but look up at the sound of deep men’s voices. Sheila caught her breath. It was the Immortan himself, and his sons! Oh, why had he come here today, when she was doing so badly?

Being a Wife had been luxury and pampering after the Wasteland stones. Their lord and God’s passionate attentions had been ferocious and painful. Men’s’ lusts always were. She had endured. The Immortan had liked that. With divine kindness, he had even petted her and chatted with her, sometimes. It had sustained her, knowing she was special, chosen. Chosen wrong, it seemed. First, she had disappointed him by bearing a girl, a half-term miscarriage, a stillborn. Today, all she was good for was three scant centimetres of milk in the glass bottle. She clutched her poppet and turned her eyes down, hoping to avoid attention.

It seemed to work. The Immortan and Rictus strode to the spyglass at the end of the space, and Corpus, in his chair, was rolled after. The Immortan and Corpus were doing something important. None of her business. Rictus gaped at a Milker who was being detached from her pumps, until his brother smacked his thigh. “Rictus! Eyes off!”

After a mere minute, they turned to leave. The Immortan thundered past, white hair flying. “Bah! Gastown filth, always running late.”

Rictus forgot the Milkers, too, leaping beside his father. “I’ll kill ‘em for you, Dad! I’ll kill ‘em with a gun and a flamethrower and a…”

Corpus followed more slowly in his rolling chair – and he scanned each Milker as he passed. He saw her glass bottle, then looked at her. He had himself wheeled to survey her. She heard him ask for her slate. The slate had everything: whether she was biddable or rebellious, her production rate, what they saw when they poked at her breasts and between her legs. They’d been doing the last one more and more, lately.

Corpus’ eyes were colder than his father’s. After a quick scan of the slate, he snapped his tiny fingers. “Abacus.” One of his attendants presented it. His hands and mind flew together. “Mark her for two rounds of breeding. Tonight, then in five more days.”

Two rounds! Two chances to get pregnant! To stay a Milker! Before she could find her weak, disused voice to thank him, Corpus had been wheeled away.

Soon, she was detached from her pumps (oh, the relief of it) and taken off to the Milking Mothers' baths to be groomed. Her voluptuousness was stripped and scrubbed, bent over and lubricated between her legs. And her veil was taken away. A small thing, but it upset her. Inside the Citadel nobody wore any more than they needed to. The transparent little veils were the only modesty the Milkers had, a reminder that they should keep silent. She hadn’t known how much hers was a part of her until it was gone.

Sheila had plenty of time to feel naked in the solitary cell where they’d put her. It faced west. That meant that, even with one light slot, it was brighter than the Milkers’ shed right now. She perched on the breeding bed in anticipation.

Who would come to her? All she knew was that they would be healthy and strong. Most often, it was the Citadel’s highest level of officers, the Imperators. Sometimes it was a stranger: a Bullet Farm bravo or one of Gastown’s psychotics, an engineer or a Polecat. The Organic Mechanic called those “fresh blood”. There were rumours that, once in a great while, the Immortan would claim what had once been his again. The thought sent her hot and cold.

Suddenly, the door rattled. Sheila turned and gasped.

_Imperator Prime._

The man who was, despite the Immortan’s sons, the Citadel’s second in command.

He strode right to her and tilted up her chin. She gazed up at him, dazzled. He had the trim, hard body of a War Boy in his prime, but his hide was unlumped, pure and tan. Age had chromed his cropped hair and light beard. His eyes, framed in a bar of Imperator’s black, shone cold. Sheila shivered all over with anticipation.

Prime grunted. He gave her cheek a light smack, then snapped his fingers. “Over.”

Sheila turned to lie face down on the breeding bed, both her exposed face and her envied breasts rejected. As she would have for the Immortan, she turned slowly, giving him time to admire her curves.

Prime wanted none of that. With two more stinging slaps, he punished her full thighs. Sheila gasped and spread for him. He responded by clamping her hips and jerking the entire lower half of her body off the bed, like she weighed nothing. Sheila felt her face go hot. If he was impatient, maybe he really wanted her.

She tried turning to peer at him, but she couldn’t see around her wide, golden shoulder. She could hear, though. Weapons clanked to the floor. Belts unbuckled: one, two, three. His Immortan’s sigil jingled as he cast it aside. So much wealth, for one man. If she could please him, and he made a favourite of her…Inspired, she arced her back, raising her haunches for him.

Whack! Whack! Whack! He bent over her, hard hands punishing her again, smashing across her arse, hard enough that her bones rocked. Without any more preliminaries, not a stroke or a word, he jerked her hips off the end of the bed, into him – and her cunt onto him. Sheila felt him ram in, wide and hard, stabbing her deeper than any other man had. He dragged her back as he rode her rough. She felt his raw leather gloves gripping her, cruel fingertips digging into her soft flesh, hard enough to bruise. Beneath her, her sensitive nipples throbbed at the friction on the bed’s rough covering, her whole body bouncing with the force of his pounding. Her hips bones still ached from his blows.

She let herself be beaten down by him, clinging to the bed’s metal frame with both hands. Tears started in her eyes. She wanted him to like her, to appreciate her, but she was too terrified to dare a word. Hot liquid ran down her legs. Her first thought was that she was bleeding: her second that he had shot but was still forcing himself on her. Then she remembered the lubricant from earlier. He was screwing her so furiously that the thick cream of it had melted from the force and heat. She was slick, open, mindless with need and fear, begging him wordlessly for his completion. One helpless sob escaped her.

The sound of surrender sent the cold machine screwing her into overdrive. Behind her, Imperator Prime revved up, thrusting faster while he dug his thumbs, sadistically, into her hip joints. She gasped with pain and disbelief. As her body contracted, he came, slamming into her one final time, still utterly silent.

Sheila held her breath until he had withdrawn. She closed her thighs on his precious jism, and, sitting sidewise on the breeders’ bed, turned. Imperator Prime was fastening his belts again, taking up his weapons. He wasn’t even looking at her. Instead, his hard gaze was elsewhere. He picked up a weapon and clicked it, _t-chak_ , scowling at the door. The latent violence in him kept her locked in her fearful silence. She didn’t matter. She could have been anyone, common bed fodder, a War Boy, a raid victim. Whatever was nothing to him. She might as well have been Wretched. As she curled, paralyzed by her terrified thoughts, he jerked the door open and strode out.

The door stayed open. He hadn’t even cared enough to close it on her nakedness.

Sheila curled her arms around herself to wait. Even if she had the resilience for the Wasteland, there was no escape from this level of the Citadel. Her destiny was here. Once she was pregnant she’d be waiting on the other Milkers: a thing tending to things. That would last until she gave birth. Then she would take her place as a Milker once more. And it would happen again, and again, until she was used up.

If she was so lucky. She thought of her second breeding round to come. And pressed her hand against her mouth, stifling her misery.

* * *

 

Swimming out of a dark dream, wanting to scream but being voiceless, was an awful sensation. The Dag jerked bolt upright.

Cheedo was there beside her. That meant it wasn’t real. That she was safe.

The Dag wrapped her arms around herself, echoing the dream. Even this room’s dimness was purer and clearer than the vision’s mute greyness. She felt grateful to be back in her body, still hers despite everything, glad to be in a room with other people, determined _that_ would never happen again at this Citadel. Not if she had anything to do with it.

Cheedo stayed asleep. Which meant she missed the cold, determined glare in the eyes beside her, vigilant for ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt for this chapter: "Milk Mother/Imperator, cold impersonal dub-con sex, A Milk Mother begins producing less milk and the powers that be decide she needs to become pregnant again so her body will produce more milk. Fanon has it that the Milk Mothers are Joe's previous wives and so maybe she's used to how "special"/important Joe made it seem when he bred her. She wouldn't have minded being bred by an Imperator, but she's upset by how coldly he goes about it, perhaps not talking to her or even looking at her."


	4. Sharp and Shine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toast, determined to be strong, only remembers her introduction to the Citadel on the edge of sleep: a horrific discussion with the Organic Mechanic followed by a forced, troubling encounter with a slit-faced War Boy. Warnings for body horror discussion, captivity, and rape/forced breeding.

Toast snapped alert and reached for her pistol. It turned out it was only Capable, slipping back into the quarantine room. Toast jerked at a motion at the edge of her vision. That, too, was a false alarm. The Dag was stroking Cheedo’s hair. Everything looked all right.

How could the others not mind what this Citadel chamber had been, before? They had to have come through here as new Wives. Being here for a night reminded Toast of the horror of being processed by the Citadel before being sent to the Vault. She had been treated like a piece of meat, examined and more, before being claimed by the Immortan. Being here, she felt like it was happening all over again.

Was it worth her pride, to have not said anything? To have walked in here like it meant nothing to her? To be the strong, tough Wastelander, whatever it cost? If so, it was a compromise she had made with herself.

Toast closed her eyes, did her best to find some rest. With her busy days, it was a waste of time if she wasn’t sleeping now. She’d always been wakeful at night, like Furiosa. It had been a good thing when she was with her tribe a thousand days ago. She’d never minded the night watches.

Perhaps she fell asleep eventually, taken by dreams. Or perhaps the dark stillness plunged her into memories.

* * *

 

To Toast’s Wasteland eyes, in the heart of the Citadel, everything looked wrong. Torchlight and rare sunbeams made everything harsh, hot, and jagged. The cruel contrast between light and dark made the people here seem hacked out of the shadows, parodies of humans. The War Boys went shirtless, shaved, bare-headed. Wastelanders wrapped up against the elements, tried to blend into the land. It was like they didn’t care if they lived or died, as long as they could please their god: Immortan Joe.

The man in front of her right now was more sensibly dressed. He was half-wrapped, arms and chest protruding from an apron, with bandoliers, belts, and straps all weighed with equipment.  He had hair – well, he was trying to. His name began with _the_ , a sign of rank: if he was _the_ Organic Mechanic, he was important. Toast still didn’t like him. She’d liked him less and less as her time with him progressed. She was pretty sure she'd never see her own gear again. The chain he’d snapped around her ankle, fastening her to a heavy table, was pinching. So were the ties holding her arms behind her back.

Now, it seemed, she was about to be left alone with this Organic. He was waving off his scrawny half-grown assistants. “G’wan, scram! About to do secret business here. This one’s shine enough to send up to Joe. Gotta tell her how to be holy for the V8, the Immortan.” That got them moving. When the door creaked shut, he slapped the bar across it and turned back to her, very slowly.

He came up to her, step by slow step, on the same side as her bound leg. He tapped his irregular teeth. Finally, he said, “Let’s have a word. So far you’ve cursed out a Treadmill guard, bitten an Imperator, and bruised up two half-life pups. Something tells me you ain’t the kind of girl to play nice for Daddy.”

Toast spat at him.

“Now, I’m not saying you should stop. Oh no. Rev it up for the Immortan Joe. A feral to tame! It’s been a while since one’s been full-life enough to send to him.”

“I’m not a feral,” Toast snapped. She said nothing of her people.

“Then fake it. The ol’ man likes to have variety up there with his Wives. Needs all the help he can get to get it up.” Organic paused. “I’m trying to help you. Nobody else here will.”

This stopped Toast cold. Everyone here had manhandled her at every turn. This one had chained her to a table, stripped her of her clothes, poked his fingers into every orifice and followed them with metal probes. Now, he was claiming to help. Her guts were shrilling, and not with the ache of him intruding on her. Survivor’s intuition told her he lied – but that this was a time to be still and listen.

“See this?” Organic tapped the tattoos on his left arm. “Means I know what I’m doing.” (Later, Toast would meet the History Woman, see her ink, and realize how scant this man’s knowing was.)  “I’m second in command here.” (Soon, Toast would meet the Immortan’s sons and see how terrifyingly close to true that was.) “I can tell you’ve got some barter in your head.”

Toast couldn’t help it. She was paying attention.

“That’s what he likes, for his breeders, some smarts. Oh, you’re in for it, girlie. Ever see miscarriages out there? Or brats that should've died? You know. Hot Zone mutants. Lil’ saddos with one eye, or a face half split open. Born covered in lumps, with extra arms, extra legs. Or how about two kids stuck together?” Organic bugged one eye out, distorted his face.

Toast turned away, grimacing.

“One of them could be yours. You’re ready to breed. Mythologically mucosal. Orgaistic and ovulating. Ol’ Joe’s got some big artillery, but his ammo’s nuked. You know what I mean? Ain’t nothing he wants more than a full-life son, for all his rotten seed. Bad luck for his breeders…he blames them. Not fair, is it? Three strikes and you get to be Wretched. You, you’re grade-A breeder prime. You’ve got a chance of a real kid. Not a pile of lumps and organs.” Organic’s leer softened. “So if you let me throw a screw in you, send you up bred, it’ll go a lot better for you.”

Toast lashed her free leg at him. “YOU FILTHY SMEG –“

He was faster than he looked, strong from wrangling blood bags and dead bodies. His hand jammed over her, stifling her shout. And his sweat reeked of fear.

Almost to himself, he gibbered, “No good if she’s marked up! Speculum speculation, no more!” He couldn’t hurt her? Toast chomped his hand. “YEEEEOWWWW!” He leapt over to the door, huddling there for one frightened moment.

Toast swung her one free leg. “Whatcha’ going to do about it?”

The Organic Mechanic’s face went terrible in the dimness, a vile dissolve between fear and evil. He scrabbled himself out. The door slammed.

Toast was smug, for a while. What a coward Organic was, afraid of a real fighter even when the fighter was naked with one leg free. He'd backed off the moment there was a risk of hurting her. She'd seen how much barter they'd handed over for her at the Treadmill. 

He was gone for so long that the one rough torch began to gutter out. Toast tried to get to it, but her chain wasn’t long enough.

She saw it dim to embers, then nothing.

Toast retreated back to the table.

It was occurring to her, too late, that this Organic hadn't feared her beyond a moment. What he really feared was his master, and failing at serving his master. This Immortan, who wanted what his own body, it seemed, couldn't give him. Organic _was_ going to do something about it. Whatever it was, she was going to suffer.

Toast remained alone in the dark until her stomach growled. Could it be that long? Time had warped. Maybe they meant to break her this way. She heard footsteps and muttering outside. No, their tactic was that they were waiting to hear her give in, call out to them. She determined that they would not.

The door was rattling. Toast coiled up on the table. The red torchlight outside half-blinded her now. 

The door opened on the figure of a fighter.

Heart racing, Toast squinted for details.This one had the silhouette of someone tall, male, broad-shouldered, lean-hipped. He was bare above the waist, but that could be any War Boy or the in-charge blokes with the blacked foreheads. More light caught him. His body gleamed white, chalky, for all his own blacked forehead. When he half-turned, Toast glimpsed his face, and her guts twisted again. He was mutilated, flesh slit deep along both cheeks, stapled roughly back together. Organic’s corrupt talk returned to her. Maybe he was a mutant they’d sewn back up.

Seeing her looking, this one smiled. Like, and yet unlike Organic’s leer.

For his evil was untouched by fear.

The War Boy giggled. “Organic says there’s a shine feral in here ready to be a breeder. Can’t see you to see if he’s telling the truth. But I’m in the mood to practice lancing, and you’ll do. Whatever you are.” He reached down and undid his low-slung trousers, casting a rattling tool belt aside. Then, he ran a hand over his taut stomach, turning to let the light and shadow play over myriad scars. “Ain’t killed myself yet. But a feral breeder’s welcome to try.” There wasn’t much in the way of guts to hold his clothes up without the belt – but something substantial caught around his crotch.

Ah, filth. Organic’s starting excitement had betrayed a puny prong trying to tent out his apron. This one had what Organic would call the artillery. And, Toast would bet, all the ammunition.

Toast did what she could to delay the inevitable: locked her ankles together.

His brows lifted at the chink of her chain. “There you are, chromeshine!” With one pounce, he was on her.  Warm, calloused hands roved and turned Toast’s body. She tried to squirm away as he jammed one of those hands between her legs. “Breeder fur! Feral, all right.” Toast tried kicking at him. It did nothing.

In a moment’s luck, she writhed off the table, only for him to pull her back with both hands. He slid against her, fast as a snake, to pin her from behind. Unintentionally, their bodies swayed together, as if they danced around a campfire with perfect rhythm. His long shaft twitched hard and hot against her exposed flesh. “Glory be! Don’t you have a chassis!” He was kneeing her legs open, holding her still by her wrists, rapacious and smooth.

Being turned about from light to dark, white War Boy to black shadows, had Toast’s eyes flashing colours that weren’t there. She did her best to scream, to blow out his eardrums, but her throat was so dry, and he had her vital points. And he read her moves so well that he followed every shift, again and again, keeping this lightless fight a dark dance. With his strength and unseen grace, he could move her however he wanted without hurting her. The bastard.

The War Boy heaved her up, spun her, and plunked her behind back where she’d started, on the table. Again the rough heat of his hands scanned her body, stroking her arms and belly, caging her neck briefly, catching on her nipples. “No gearstick and no lumps. More and more chrome!” It threw her off balance when he breathed deep and hissed appreciatively. It was, exactly, the sound of a lizard about to attack. And that was what he did.

He shocked and froze her with one awful move, diving to jam his face between her legs. Shocked, she squirmed back as his tongue probed her. It didn't hurt, what he was doing, but the spreading wetness and sheer violation set her on battle-edge. Toast took a deep breath and crushed her legs together. Could she smother him, injure him? No. He took it as a cue to burrow his face even deeper. She was only hurting herself as metal staples scraped her inner thighs. And she wasn’t the only one with teeth: he turned and bit her tender flesh. Toast heard her yelp ring out.

He roared with laughter, delight, even, and pounced back up. Over his peerless fighter’s form, his face was an inhuman mask. Toast glimpsed one pupil, distorted, reptilian again in a once-injured eye. That glimpse, all of a second, told her he was done playing and testing.

His artillery cramming into her confirmed that.

It happened so fast, and so much adrenaline had her, that it barely hurt. Slit-face was agile and long-limbed, doing three things at once: keeping her wrists clamped, licking the side of her face, and ramming into her like  one part of an engine meeting another. None of this raised a sweat in him. He took her with his whole active body, pulling out to his full length before hammering back in. As he thrust, his engine’s growl got louder and louder. Toast turned away from the heavy heat of his breath as he snarled.

“You feeling tamed, feral? Like your V8 ride with me? Gonna fill you up shiny and chrome, ride you to Valhalla, glory, glory, GLORY—“ His voice dissolved into a snarling howl as his body juddered. Pinned, Toast went tense, white lightning in her veins, intensity she didn't recognize. For an instant, they were poised still together. His breath had caught the rhythm of hers.

 _Was he done?_   Toast wondered.

“Done!” Toast reeled with nausea. He was reading her mind now as well, plucking out her thoughts like that. The War Boy didn’t seem to care. He eased back, leaving Toast with new emptiness in her, and jerked his trousers up. Seizing his tool belt, he turned towards the door. It was wider open than it had been. “Sweet meat, Organic. Could've left the lights on, even! She gonna be a breeder?”

Organic must have been watching them through the door, the way that greasy bastard strutted in. “If you didn’t do the job already, lancer. Nice work, as always. G’wan, scram, I’ll give your mate top-up priority.” Slit-face swaggered off, not looking back.

One of the Citadel’s identical hordes brought in a fresh torch. Organic and his assistants followed, along with strange new people, soft and swift. Enough to overwhelm Toast if she tried to fight. They were doing a hundred things at once, unlocking her, pulling her hair, mummifying her in yards of strange white fabric worth half a convoy. They muttered words she didn’t understand about baths and marriage and Valhalla. She was cold and shaking, feeling done in.

Out of nowhere, Toast wished to the gods that weren’t that she could talk to her mother one more time. She tuned into what Organic was saying later than she should have.

“Yeah, she’s for the Immortan. Go on and do your mumbo-jumbo thing. I’ll see you upstairs, sweet meat. Unless you’d like to come back for a nice visit? The sooner you piss off the old man upstairs…say, tell him how thorough you got examined…the sooner we get you back here. Your call.”

Toast turned to him. “I’ll see you in hell,” she said.

Then, white hands drew her away, and Citadel shadows took her.

* * *

Toast cracked her eyes back open. She had not known, back then, how right she was going to be. For the next time she saw Slit’s face was in hell, in the despairing heart of the Fury Road.

Filthy Organic had been right, too. The Immortan had been convinced he’d bred her up the first time he raped her. Organic had never examined Toast’s pregnancy without a particular, personal leer. When the sly History Woman had suggested the sedition of her giving birth without telling Organic, Toast was all for it. It was one of the only ways to rebel in the Vault without someone else suffering for it.

The Immortan had wanted a son. Nothing would lead him to compromise. Not even the perfect child Toast had carried, a dusk-and-roses daughter. Watching Organic sweep that child away had hardened Toast for life – and primed her and the History Woman, together, for the next stage of rebellion.

Toast settled into a combination of sadness and restored self. It had been hard, but there was worse out there, she always told herself. She was also glad at her self-control in not thinking of the disturbing, slit-faced War Boy at all. Ever.

When she was awake…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt for this chapter. "I want Slit/Toast dub-con or non-con..."


	5. Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The four Sisters awake for a fresh start.

Capable saw Toast sit up and hold her forehead in both hands with a deep sigh. Across the dim room, Capable said, “I can’t sleep either. Did you have a dream?”

Toast looked up, startled.  “Maybe. I don’t want to talk about it.” That was typical Toast.

The Dag said from her cot, “I did. A schlanged up night ride. Recursive reverberations off these rocks and the smeg they’ve seen. “

It was time for Capable to do what she’d been thinking of. She padded over to Toast. “I’m sorry about before. I think you’re right. We should try harder. If I can help with Gastown work, let me know.”

“Thanks.” Toast paused. “It’s hard all ‘round. You’re right, too. There’s worse things than compromise. You're good at things I don't have the patience for. Like War Boys. We need to keep it together here.” She pointed at Cheedo, softly asleep. Both Toast and Capable went over to the cot she shared with the Dag.

Toast said, “I should have watched. Did she get one of the shots?”

“Didn’t need it,” the Dag murmured. “Remember, the Immortan was waiting. He never…”

Toast said, “That's right. It was why Furiosa…”

Capable looked down at them both, sharply. “Was it?”

Toast paused. "Well, that and pissing the Immortan off as much as she could."

Capable said, “Whatever her reasons were, I’m glad.”

Cheedo blinked prettily and half-sat up. “Is everyone feeling all right?”

The Dag curled a nervy hand in front of her face. Through her fingers, she asked, “Were you having a dream?”

“I never have dreams,” Cheedo said, simply.

Her three Sisters sighed in relief.

Cheedo went on. “But I wish I did. Remember how Miss Giddy said some people in the Wasteland have dreams that tell the future? I’d like to do that.”

“We can do that when we’re awake,” Capable said.

She caught Toast and the Dag rolling their eyes. “Listen to her. Somebody’s been spending too much time sweet talking the Pups,” Toast said, with her usual wry edge.

The Dag replied, “Good. She can look after mine.”

“Dag! You said I could!” Cheedo cried. Capable found herself laughing as Toast smiled. Cheedo beamed, nestling up to the Dag. “We haven’t all slept in the same room since we – since we were freed. Can we do it again sometime?”

“As long as we have a better reason next time,” said Capable.

“And NOT in here,” said the Dag.

Toast pulled up her sleeves. “We’re here now. Remember Angharad’s wordburger: _pile up time_? Capable, help me drag a cot this way.” Capable stepped up with a will, eager to start remaking this space, too. 

**Author's Note:**

> In the film, part of the inspiration for Immortan Joe's look was...according to [this article](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/11/movies/mad-max-fury-road-and-the-furiosa-factor.html?_r=0)...syphilis! My first thought was "The Wives - _my cinnamon rolls_ \- exposed to syphilis on top of everything else they've suffered?" Hence, the framing device for this story.


End file.
